UnionPay International announced today that the official website of Yiwu Market now connects to UnionPay Cross-border B2B Payment Service Platform. Purchasers outside China are able to pay safely and conveniently with UnionPay cards issued overseas to buy goods at www.yiwugou.com. This cooperation between UnionPay International and the website will bring much wider market space to the tens of thousands of SMEs in Yiwu.

Since the proposal of the Belt and Road Initiative, China’s cross-border ecommerce is booming. According to the study of China Ecommerce Research Center, China’s cross-border ecommerce transaction volume grew by 30% year-on-year in the first half of 2017, and 80% is export. In this context, UnionPay International enhances payment convenience for cross-border ecommerce to help online merchants and SMEs in in China to attract more customers overseas. So far, UnionPay cards issued worldwide are accepted at Ctrip.com, Tuniu.com and DHgate.com, one of the largest export ecommerce platforms in China.

UnionPay International launched its Cross-border B2B Platform in 2017, which provides a range of services including cross-border online payment, online payment collection, online foreign currency settlement and E-invoice order management, offering better services to cross-border online merchants and traditional trade companies. To date, several ecommerce platforms have connected to UnionPay Cross-border B2B Platform. These include Cemarket, an export platform of mechanical and electrical products in China, and Shoplus, the largest Sino-Pakistan ecommerce site in Pakistan. The transaction volume of the Platform is multiplying each month.

The Yiwu Market is the largest commodity wholesale market in the world. Its commodities are exported to the Middle East, Europe, Central and South America, as well as Africa, with an export volume of a trillion yuan. Now, purchasers are able to pay with UnionPay Online Payment on the website, which harbors 55,000 merchants that sell more than 2.4 million types of goods. This new progress improves cross-border trade payment experiences and will attract more ecommerce both in and outside China to connect to UnionPay Cross-border B2B Platform.

In addition, Kilimall, a large-scale ecommerce platform in Africa, will connect to UnionPay Cross-border B2B Platform this year, which allows purchasers in Africa to pay with Africa-issued UnionPay cards to buy “made in China” on the website.